Trump decisively wins Democratic 'home state'

Republican candidate Donald Trump has vowed to win next November's presidential election in Minnesota, which has traditionally favored Democrats and hasn't voted Republican in 50 years.


Former US president Donald Trump appeared at the annual Republican fundraising event in Minnesota on the evening of May 17 (US time).

According to Reuters news agency, Trump has vowed to win Minnesota and that the Democratic nominee, incumbent US president Joe Biden, will suffer defeat in the state in the November election.

No Republican presidential candidate has won in Minnesota since former president Richard Nixon in 1972. In 2016, Trump nearly turned the tide in the state when he trailed Democrat Hillary Clinton by just 1.5% of the vote.

In the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Biden defeated Trump in Minnesota by more than 7% of the vote.


But during a fundraising event on the evening of May 17, Trump repeated allegations of fraud in the 2020 election and that he was the one who won Minnesota that year

According to The Associated Press, Trump also claimed that it was the imposition of tariffs on foreign steel during his presidency that "revitalized" the "Iron Range" mining area in northeast Minnesota.

The Republican candidate continued to attack Joe Biden with strong language, even calling the current US president "a horrible human being

Observers are divided over whether Minnesota will become a competitive arena in this year's election. But according to Minnesota Republican Party Chairman David Hann, the state is having points of dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden. Part of that is attributed to the spread of the movement protesting Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Independent polls still show Biden leading Trump by 2 to 4 percentage points in Minnesota — a gap Reuters described as "narrow but steady."

Rural areas of Minnesota have tended to lean Republican over the past decade, but the suburbs around Minneapolis tend to favor Democrats.